Lucky Rabbit

Once her eyes adjusted, Pandy discovered that it really was fascinating to soar over the city, watching people hurry home from work, or whatever they’d been doing on a cool, drizzly day. Some held umbrellas, while others pulled their hats low over their faces and hunched their shoulders beneath damp coats. Then there were the ones who turned their faces, flower-like, up to the rain, letting it soak them.

These would have been Pandy’s favorites, except that they were the most likely to see her, a soggy white blur swooping by overhead, thankfully unable to tire, in spite of the weight of the moisture in her fur. Pandy would have tried flying higher, but even as the raindrops thinned, the humidity began to rise, and darkness fell to meet it, creating a haze over Knighfell.

She found what she was almost certain was the southern edge of the city first. Just as she remembered from the trip between the Reedsley estate and Falconet, crowded buildings eased away from one another, then separated entirely, buffered by gardens that grew into farms. In the distance, she could even see the river that she now knew had once flowed through the city, but had been rerouted to create more space for buildings.

Following the last of the huddled houses, and with an eye on the unwavering gleam of her chosen star, Pandy made her way closer and closer to what she hoped was the southeastern part of the city. As she did, she noticed that while the buildings didn’t become graffiti-covered and shuttered, as they would have in the less reputable parts of her Earth home, they did grow smaller, each one tumbling into the next like a stack of children’s blocks that hadn’t quite been knocked over, rather than sitting in tidy rows along equally tidy streets.

At last, when Pandy thought she must be fairly close, she flew over an open area that looked like a knock-off version of Lanthorne Court. It was mostly empty now, of course, but she could tell that even after the rain, the cobblestones were less level, the crevices between them containing more debris, and several pieces of trash hid beneath the eaves of nearby buildings.

While no carts lingered there, a couple of shops still had their doors open and their lights ablaze. Cheerful music – mostly of the vocal variety, accompanied by some form of stringed instrument – reached Pandy’s ears, and a few closed carriages waited in the square outside, drivers sitting in the exposed front seats, shoulders curled down against fat droplets that blew off of rooftops and some stubborn trees each time the wind blew.

Pandy nearly landed on a roof, before realizing that she would then have to get down from that roof. While she knew she could make the jump, she didn’t need a repeat of her arrival at the Rabbit’s Den, so instead she flapped her wings rapidly, pulling up at the last second, then circled down to a narrow sidestreet instead.

Like the alley beside the Den, this one had been fenced off, creating a sort of tiny courtyard for one or both of the buildings that bracketed it. Pandy landed just on the ‘open’ side of the fence, which created a shallow alcove that was conveniently rabbit-sized. Unfortunately, this meant it was also cat-sized, and for a moment it seemed she might have to go paw to claw with several skinny strays, but then she cast Shifting Faces again, and they backed off – not so much because she’d gotten larger, but because they were Very Confused by the change. Pandy hiked up her yellow skirts and left before they could decide to see if human-shaped rabbit was as tasty as rabbit-shaped rabbit.

The first carriage driver she reached seemed uncertain about taking a woman alone to someplace like the Rabbit’s Den, but when she promised a hefty tip, he decided money was better than morals and agreed. As she’d hoped, the trip was short, but Pandy spent most of it in bunny shape again, conserving her time as a human against any necessary expenditures that might come later. She returned briefly to Ms. Wellington’s shape in order to climb down from the carriage and slip the driver a single gold coin, which he seemed to view as sufficient, if his abrupt departure was anything to go by.

Alone again, she returned to her stealthier rabbit form and slipped into the darkness. She’d had the driver drop her at the corner near the tavern, rather than in front of the building. She had an excuse ready for why she didn’t want to be seen arriving at the front door, but the driver seemed thoroughly uninterested, which was almost disappointing, because she’d spent several minutes crafting the conversation she would have as the distressed wife of a man who was either cheating on her or getting roaring drunk when he was supposed to be coming home to his loving spouse and six small children. In the end, it was probably best that she didn’t have to stretch her all-but-nonexistent acting skills, and Pandy simply hopped down the street, watching for the watchers she was certain must be there.

When she didn’t see anything, Pandy didn’t try to convince herself that she was actually alone. If nothing else, she knew the Knights of the Royal Eagle could become invisible, so there could be a dozen of them standing in the street, and she wouldn’t know it until she ran into them. So, rather than shifting back to human form and trying the door, Pandy rolled in the fresh mud, covering her freshly rain-washed white fur in muck, and scurried along the edges of the buildings, hoping that if anyone saw her, they would assume she was a large rat, just as the kitchen-workers had.

It was the matter of a moment to squeeze past the fence again, scraping off a layer of mud as she did so. She froze on the other side, discovering that while the front of the building looked the same as the night before – other than the absence of drunken patrons – this space had changed significantly.

The crates were still there, but they’d clearly been opened, their contents emptied out. Soaked flour had formed a glutinous glob on the far side of the small courtyard. Now that the rain had ended, insects swarmed over it, carrying clumps back to their buggy brethren. The crates themselves had been built into a teetering tower of timber beside the former flour, and ripped canvas bags slumped nearby.

Focusing on the doors leading into the buildings on either side of her, Pandy tried to hear anything that might indicate someone was there, invisible or perhaps simply hiding in proto-papier-mâché. Nothing moved except for a few heavy drops that fell from the eaves into the slurry of flour. Pandy watched these, but nothing disturbed their desultory descent, so she moved forward, trying to convey a feeling of damp and dejected bunny with each dispirited hop. No knights skewered her from hiding, and no villains climbed from the pile of discarded bags, so when she reached the door to the Den, she thought,

Shifting Faces successful. 01:11:10 remaining.

Again, nothing stabbed, slugged, or slammed into her, so Pandy reached out and turned the handle. It began to swing open, and Pandy had just enough time to wonder who was running this shoddy operation when a slim brown hand shot out, pulling her inside. Pandy yelped and instinctively yanked her arm back, which made full-size Isidor stumble forward, eyes widening as he almost broke his nose on the doorframe.

Hissing like an overheated kettle, the boy released her, jerking away so he stumbled backwards. Both of them struggled to keep their feet, ending up crouched, staring at each other. At Isidor’s shoulder, a small ball of light hung, exactly like those Pandy had seen the knights wearing, though he didn’t have the reflective armor piece to keep it from shining into his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” he asked at something that was probably meant to be a whisper, but ended up more like a raspy yell.

“What are you doing here?” Pandy whisper-yelled in return. They both straightened, adjusting their clothes as they tried to look like everything that had just happened had been entirely intentional. Pandy had almost put herself back together when a turtle trundled from the twilight of the hallway beyond the kitchen, making a noise that sounded like a tiny, adorable growl.

Isidor focused on Tempest, dismissing Pandy. “What did you find?” he asked her. She tilted her head, growling again, and a little burst of sparks flashed from her shell. Isidor started to head in that direction, then paused, glancing at Pandy, and gave a beleaguered sigh. “Now that you’re here, you may as well come along.” He pushed aside the shredded remains of the cloth that had hung across the opening – apparently someone had gotten annoyed and pulled most of it down – and followed his tortoise.

Pandy hesitated only a moment before going along, using the reflected glow of Isidor’s light-ball to see that the bar had been systematically cleared out, with not a single bottle remaining, and even most of the tankards missing from the shelves. Had the knights taken them all so their contents could be tested? If so, it could take a long time to check every one.

But Isidor was already heading down the steps to the basement, now holding Tempest in one hand. Pandy caught the glint of light from a knife blade as he crept forward, and she hung back. She really didn’t want to be stabbed right now, especially by someone who was probably still her ally.

In the basement, Isidor made a quick sweep of the space, revealing an overturned table and several chairs, as well as shelves that were now empty of whatever they might have contained before the search. He found a tunnel that was no longer concealed by a broken shelf, but only peered down it far enough to make sure no one was hiding there, then circled around the opening between what could only generously be called two rooms.

Pandy had just gotten a glimpse of the space in which the men had been sitting, and because the prison room was so dark, she hadn’t been able to make out much of it, either. Now she could see that metal rings had been driven into large stone blocks set into the hard-packed earthen walls, and abandoned chains lay on the ground between them. One end of each chain connected to a wall-ring, looking like it was never meant to be removed. The other end was attached to a rusted metal sphere, which was far too large and heavy for anyone to move easily, especially if they were already sick or injured.

Isidor muttered something beneath his breath as he nudged a chain with his foot, then crouched to examine a roughly circular stain on the floor. His fingers hovered over it, but he didn’t touch it, though it looked like someone else had scraped a bit of it up, judging by the small furrows visible in the dirt. Did they think it might have been a spilled potion? Pandy doubted it, but she was still impressed by the thoroughness of the knights’ examination. Which begged the question – where were they?

Well, she was here, and she could see immediately that the searchers had missed at least one thing. No surprise, really, since she could now tell that the hole she’d made was quite small, and the pieces of stone and mortar were dry and crumbled. It was clear that the wall blocking off the space beneath the stairs was old – the work had been done at least a few years ago, which meant it should be irrelevant to their search for information relating to a problem that was only a few months old.

When Pandy started to pick at the wall, Isidor turned to glare at her. The glare turned into a frown when the first pieces of rock fell away, and he hurried over to grab her arm when she managed to break free a long piece of mortar. “What are you doing?” he muttered, glancing around.

She dropped her hand. There were chunks of stone beneath her fingernails, which was a very unpleasant feeling, but at least her nails hadn’t broken. Maybe it was because she was using Scratch? She’d have to check the skill info to see if it mentioned anything about unbreakable claws when in use.

“What are you doing?” she asked, propping her hands on her hips. “You’re supposed to be at school, watching out for-”

He clapped a hand over her mouth, and Pandy’s eyes widened. “Don’t,” Isidor hissed. “I… know someone. I asked for a favor, and, uh, that person made sure I’d have a few minutes to look around. Literally a few minutes. And I can’t leave behind any evidence I was here.”

They both looked down at the little pile of crumbled mortar by their feet, and Isidor lifted his brows while Pandy flushed. “Oops. I wouldn’t have done it if you’d just told me, though,” she snapped defensively.

Fine. She couldn’t just open the wall and leave the evidence for the knights to find. It was one thing for them to go looking for her, but quite another for Isidor’s friend to either get in trouble or get mad at Isidor because of something Pandy had done.

Pandy thought, and her perspective dropped, while also expanding, showing her the entire room all at once. That somehow made the whole low-rent dungeon vibe even creepier, so Pandy darted into the little hole where a single stone had been pushed aside, then broken. She almost immediately got stuck, since the whole wall had settled a bit since her escape, but another wriggle and a kick pushed her through.

There in front of her was the spider corpse, still upside down, with its remaining legs curled in over its dark abdomen. One leg lay off to the side, where it had fallen after Pandy bit it off, and the dangling shreds of webbing, stained red and smattered with white fur, attested to the battle that had taken place here.

Pandy shuddered, edging forward until the thing was almost within reach, then swallowed hard and stretched out a paw. She didn’t have a command for placing objects into or taking them out of her inventory, but always before it had worked when she simply imagined it. This time, it didn’t. The body just lay there, motionless.

She tried again, then got closer and pressed both of her front paws against its abdomen, as far from those jaws as possible. The body still didn’t vanish, so she thought,

Cannot place living creatures in Inventory.

But maybe you’d like a nice bag to put it in?

You have a Battered Small Pink Handbag in Inventory Slot Three.

I can get it for you!

Pandy hopped backwards with such enthusiasm that her head hit the step above and behind her. In response, a muffled voice spoke, and then something rapped back. It took her several horrified seconds to identify the voice as Isidor’s, and the sound as flesh and bone knocking on a stone wall. Isidor was worried.

Back to Ms. Wellington she went, and she was very proud when her voice only wavered slightly as she called, “Come around to the steps. I’m going to,” oh god oh god oh god, “give you something. But don’t… don’t scream.” That ended up as a double negative, but Isidor wasn’t the screaming type, so it would be fine. Probably.

“What is it?” Pandy could barely understand him, but it was what she would have asked if their positions were reversed, so she just told him again to go to the stairs.

Only when she heard near-silent footsteps on the wooden boards, and saw dust filtering down through faint, indirect light, did Pandy stretch out her hands for the corpse. It was definitely too big for the handbag, no matter how stretched out the seams had become, but she distracted herself from her task by trying to choose the perfect size bag to carry with her for future use. Larger than the little clutch, certainly, but not so big that it would look strange for her to carry it in public. Probably not a backpack, then, no matter how convenient-

She almost screamed as another leg fell off, dropping to the floor in what seemed like slow motion. The dust was so thick that her human ears couldn’t even hear the sound it made when it landed, but it bounced, spinning in place so it almost looked alive. Turning, she shoved the body between the closest two steps, releasing it as soon as she felt its slight weight lift.

she thought, before racing back out of the small space with all the grace of a terrified rabbit.